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‘He’s the best thing to happen to Uxbridge’

At just 23, rookie councillor Jacob Mantle is a real asset to Uxbridge, say colleagues who have watched him flourish during his first year in office.

Learning about the complexity of running a municipality has been a challenge for rookie Uxbridge councillor Jacob Mantle but he's loving every minute.
(Carola Vyhnak / Toronto Star)

By Carola VyhnakUrban Affairs Reporter

Sun., Dec. 25, 2011

All this week, we’ll catch you up with some of the fascinating people we’ve covered in the Toronto Star’s GTA section. Today, we talk to Jacob Mantle, the 23-year-old Uxbridge councillor, who we wrote about in October, 2010.

Jacob Mantle pauses mid-bite into a club sandwich that’s almost as big as his ambitions. Become prime minister?

“I’d love to,” he beams.

Not right away, of course. He wants to go to law school, get a bit more life experience. And he kind of has his hands full right now, sandwich notwithstanding.

Besides, he’s only just turned 23.

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The GTA’s youngest politician was 21 when he was elected to Uxbridge council in October 2010. And the new kid on the political block is impressing the heck out of his colleagues, all of whom could be his parents or grandparents.

“He’s the best thing to happen to Uxbridge,” says 20-year veteran Bev Northeast.

“A real asset,” adds Gerri Lynn O’Connor, mayor for the second time in her 26 years in local politics. “I’d be happy to have him as my grandson.”

The feedback from Town Hall reads like a school report card: “Comes prepared,” “does his homework,” “eager to learn,” and “has concern for doing what is right and sensible.”

The first year hasn’t been easy, he admits, citing the cost and complexity of running a municipality as his biggest learning challenge. Trying to grasp things like “how a vacant piece of land goes from farmer’s field to subdivision” can send him to his “elders” for help.

“Gerri Lynn is a good mentor,” he notes. “She’s one of the most experienced mayors in all of Ontario, if not Canada.”

O’Connor commends his willingness to “come in and say, ‘Okay, I need to better understand this.’”

Mantle believes “the bar’s a little bit higher for me because of the youth factor,” but he’s drawing on skills developed as an intern in Durham MP Bev Oda’s ministry and as a legislative assistant for MPP John O’Toole — a position he still holds.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned from John O’Toole is that everyone deserves to be heard,” says Mantle.

He’s been immersed in politics for years, discussing the subject around the family dinner table and studying it in university to earn an honours degree.

It was an interest in community and a desire to make positive changes that pulled him into a political career which, he’s discovered, is “more of a lifestyle than a job.”

Weekends and evenings are often filled with events that he turns into dates with his girlfriend of three years, he says, adding “reports and legislation” have replaced novels on his bedside table.

Over the past 12 months, he’s posed with alpacas, visited fire halls, honoured war veterans, cut ribbons, planted trees, drummed up support for a new skate park and played the part of Uxbridge’s mayor in the 1890s at a 110th anniversary celebration of the town’s Music Hall.

One area where he’s left his colleagues in the dust is technology. With social media and mobile devices as his constant companions, Mantle is promoting the use of electronic agendas and encouraging the rest of council to get on Facebook and Twitter.

Good for him — and us — says Bev Northeast, who sees mutual benefits from his arrival last year. Mantle agrees. “It’s all been an amazing experience. These will be the best years of my life. I love every minute.”

His immediate goal is “to do a good job at what I’m doing.” The sandwich, it turns out, is a bit more than he can chew.

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